Quote:
Originally Posted by Wavytone
Before you all get too excited about solar power, a few sobering thoughts concerning NSW (for example) - from the publicly available annual reports of the network operators:
1. NSW annual electricity consumption for 2914 : 91,000 GWh
2. Net solar power into the grid: 850 MWh which is less than 0.001% of the demand;
3. Net wind power into the grid : 1,600 GWh which is about 1.5%.
And bear in mind both wind and solar are only produced because of a political interference (the subsidies) to distort what should have been a free market; without the subsidy neither are viable economically.
Wind power at least is capable of producing something significant but to scale it up 60x implies plastering most of the countrysude with windmills. Not really sure how acceptable that's going to be.
As for solar... It simply doesn't scale to anything useful unless you're prepared to cover most of the countryside with solar cells. Not really viable, actually.
The conclusion from an independent consultancy reviewing the governments solar program concluded it was no more than a "feel good" measure to pacify the greenies with no practical benefit of any significance to the electrical network. And it has also left a political legacy of domestic users having installed these things with the expectation of continuing to be subsidised to generate an insignificant amount power at artificlally inflated prices, attempting to bring these users back to reality is going to be unpalatable for any government.
The problem with both is what happens when the wind isn't blowing, or the sun isn't shining - we still need base load power stations running with the full capacity to power the load at no notice. Unfortunately you can't just start/stop power stations with a flick of a switch. They take hours to start, and once running they stay running for months regardless of the load.
And before you armchair experts try to throw the theory at me, spare your fingers, the reality unfortunately shows a rather different picture.
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This thread started out with a quote from the CEO of AGL and presumably he represents the view of at least some of his board - hardly "armchair experts" and probably not a pinko greenie in sight..
The view that renewables are minor contributors is just not true of SA - we have on occasion generated 100% of our power from renewables and the goal is for an average of 50%, up from the current 33%. The sky didn't fall when most of the thermal generators were taken off line for almost a week late last year. Presumably we used the network as a buffer, but surely that is what it was built for.
I agree that solar does not seem to be all that competitive for base load at present, but power storage is coming as the AGL CEO said - and that will change things. In the meantime, I have just put a new solar system on my house and the first bill was almost exactly half that from last year - this is with no FIT government assistance (I get 5c per kWh), this is just reduced consumption because we are not taking energy from the grid (even on cloudy days). PV may not be practical for the big end of town, but it is now so cheap that it is a very good investment in the end user environment, with or without any FIT assistance. Previous government help worked well in encouraging the industry in the early days and it is now paying off big time for us small users. PV may not help "the electrical network", but why should I care about that - it helps me a lot. I suspect that the "independent consultacy" that advised the government possibly did not consult with many household users or small businesses.
I am amazed at how quickly the tide seems to be turning. A couple of years ago it seemed like we were on the Titanic and headed for the iceberg, but many new technologies are powering ahead and a long term energy future now seems much more do-able.